The transformation of East Passyunk Avenue over the past decade has been well documented, with numerous new businesses of all shapes and sizes coming to the Avenue. At the very southern end of the Avenue, however, at 1934 E Passyunk Ave., Colombo’s looms as one of the properties that has not really changed too much as the street has evolved.

A structure that sits on a 2,500 sqft, awkwardly shaped lot, Colombo’s has a restaurant set up inside with a liquor license, as well as permanent outdoor seating. With a well-marketed, properly conceived concept, we could imagine a business finding considerable success at this location. Meanwhile, it’s sat barely used in recent years, offered for sale to anyone willing to meet the owner, Maurice Pisano’s price.

In the past

The property was listed for sale back in 2004 for a few months, at a price of $1.5M. Quoth the listing, “The city of Philadelphia is declaring to bring bussiness to East Passyunk Ave .It will be a homerun and dynamyte area.The city will be very linien to all bussiness owner whose operate their bussiness on East Passyunk area.It will be the Mannayunk of South Philly.” Needless to say, nobody bought it at the time.

Over the weekend, the place caught fire, according to our friends at the Passyunk Post. All the windows were blown out, and the apartment upstairs was damaged. All of the window openings are now boarded up, and we would guess that the commercial space is probably trashed.

View today

Another angle

Will this event lead to the building being sold in the near future, or will the owners continue to hold onto the property? On the plus side, the Doors & Windows ordinance will ensure that the windows are replaced sooner rather than later.

If someone were to step in and purchase this property, what would people like to see here?